Here’s some behind-the-scene (BTS) stories from the making of Sarah, Plain and Tall!
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We honestly had NO clue what we were doing when we first started! To be perfectly (and quite brutally) honest, I (Sarah Grace) knew next to nothing about recording\sound design. Someone asked me what I was “recording into”, and I had no idea what he was talking about! I didn’t know what a DAW was, and I certainly had no idea how to even begin sound designing. This was definitely a learning process!

Fun fact: in (nearly) all of the outdoor ambiances, the main bird you hear is a Bobwhite Quail. I did a bit of research on birds in Kansas, and the Bobwhite Quail showed to a rather popular bird in Kansas. It’s all about detail, folks! Probably nobody noticed it, but it is one of the little hidden things that make me feel good. ;)

Recording was a lot of fun, but took a LONG while to finally finish it. We started recording in early April of 2015, and around that time, the entire family got sick with a nasty chest cold. That led to 6 weeks of coughing, sniffing and sneezing. Can’t really record with that. We were literally sucking on cough drops between recording! (as you will hear in the blooper reel) It was July before ALL the recording was done. But all in all, we really enjoyed the process! Luke was a lot of fun to record. He was always making jokes; it was hard to get anything done! Elijah was probably the most fun to record. It was definitely a different experience. He was too young to read his own lines, so Victoria read his lines to him, and he repeated them.

Foley was a TON of fun! One of my favorite “Foley moments” was for the hail scene. I was on a ladder with the microphone, holding it above the roof, and Victoria was on the ground, throwing marbles onto to roof to simulate hail. We actually did this twice, once on the house roof, and again on the galvanized metal roof on our barn. (Although we didn’t use the Foley from the barn roof). We ended up with some great sounds . . . and a broken gutter. (True story, sorry Dad!) It was very fun, but I started to question whether or not is was completely necessary as I was picking marbles one by one out of the grass.

Another great Foley moment was for the scene when Sarah, Anna and Caleb go swimming in the cow pond. Victoria used a rock wrapped in an old sheet with a rope attached to it thrown into our pond to sound like a person jumping into the water. And she used a sheet swished about in the water to sound like a person wading in, and swimming. Also, it was below 32 degrees outside at this point! Our poor fingers were completely numb when we (finally) finished! At the time, I didn’t enjoy it that much, but looking back, it was quite fun. ;)
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Also of interesting note: each and every footstep in Sarah, Plain and Tall was Foley. We reused some, but they were all originally created by us.

​This is a pic of the Foley team, Sarah Grace (left), Victoria (far right), and Elijah (center). We were working on footsteps.

This is a screenshot of the finished sound design for the last scene. Yes, I squealed.

Somebody decided it would be funny to draw a face on the sock we were using as a pop shield, as we call our mic “Mr. Mike.”

We also put together some audio bloopers and behind-the-scenes stuff! Everything from singing Ava Maria between takes, to teaching Luke how to say “ayuh” (a word from Maine that Sarah teaches Caleb to say) and trying to get him to add “a little more ugh” to a line, to Elijah fake giggling, to singing Victoria’s signature song, Don’t Worry, Be Happy. Enjoy!

Also, we wanted to thank each and every one of you who commented or emailed us with your thoughts about Sarah, Plain and Tallor shared it in whatever way. Thank you so much! It really does mean so much to us!

And, as a side note, we had a ton more pictures and a few videos of recording and doing Foley, but unfortunately, we lost them. Maybe one day we will find them, and be able to share them with you guys.

Leave a comment and let us know what you thought about this post, our website, or just Ichthus Family Productions in general! We would love to hear from you!

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